Today's date -- July 31 -- is a Kerouac "two-fer"

Elise Cowen (L) and Gore Vidal (R)

Today's date -- July 31 -- is Kerouac noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is Beat poet Elise Cowen's birthday (1933). She appeared as Barbara Lipp in Kerouac's Desolation Angels. Read about her here (a website I just discovered).

Second, on this date in 2012 writer and bon vivant Gore Vidal died. He appeared in The Subterraneans as Arial Lavalina and in Old Angel Midnight as Gore Bedavalled. Read about him here.